TwinOaks

Leather is not heat proof, and I don't think there is any treatment to make it so. Remember, it's skin....preserved, but still skin.

You may want to look into the legal requirements if you plan to do this at a business, depending on your location. If it's just friends, or people you know, that's one thing, but as a business I think there are some specific requirements. Not necessarily an FFL, but something similar to what gunsmiths use.

You don't have to "deglaze", but it certainly helps to clean the leather before dyeing. You have probably left some hand oils on it from handling, and you don't know how many people put their hands on it before you got it. I use 90% isopropyl alcohol from Wally world and just give it a nice wipe down to pull off any dirt/oil which will block the dye. This also has the tendency to open the pores a bit, resulting in better penetration of the dye. Too much alcohol and you dry the leather out, so as said, just a little on a cloth and wipe. Try to avoid leaving burnishing streaks from rubbing too hard.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the hole sizing (2mm, 3mm, etc.) is referring to holes punched...that's why using "a 00 on corners" is mentioned. Chisels move a LOT of leather relative to the actual hole, so all that leather is weakened. And before I get ahead of myself, it should be pointed out that chisels and pricking irons are NOT the same thing. Drilling? Not even on thick vegtan. Drilling and hole punching both remove leather, and of the two, a punch is better because it cuts the leather where the drill tears the leather (as evidenced by the fuzzies). This can sometimes be a good thing, such as in lacing where you have a (larger than thread) lace filling the hole back up. For stitching, especially where strength is an issue, you want the smallest hole possible. The reason for that is that it keeps more of the grain intact...and the grain is the strongest part of the leather. You've got two things holding a seam together - the thread itself, and the leather between the stitches that's under the thread. Also worth noting is that a diamond (shaped) awl pierces the leather and pushes open a hole....which WILL close up on its own. When you combine a self closing hole with a small hole size, the result is that there's very little room for dirt and grime to get down into the stitch hole....and dirt, especially sand, is what usually cuts thread. Grime, in all its forms, can hold moisture/bacteria, etc. and cause the thread to rot. Either one results in a broken thread, typically at the most inopportune time. As to seam strength, well, it's a simple calculation of the tensile strength of the thread being used multiplied by a fraction of the number of stitches (because you're not pulling evenly on all of them). Add in the variable of the leather thickness and tannage, and the number of holes you've made in the leather. Too many holes and the leather between stitches will give way before the thread does....the result is the afore mentioned 'perforating the leather', just like a roll of paper towels. One more thing to account for is whether the seam was glued before stitching. With a lot of the glues available these days, you can get a bond that is stronger than the leather fibers, so if you go to pull it apart, you're actually pulling the leather fibers apart from each other, not pulling the glued seam apart. Back before industrial adhesives, it was pretty common to have "hide glue" used. So what does the glue do? Well, besides bonding side A to side B and preventing separation, it also prevents slippage between the two pieces. Ever heard leather 'creak' when it's flexed? That's the two pieces rubbing against each other. Enough of that and the only thing holding the leather together is the stitched seam. Proper bonding of two pieces makes it behave like it's a single piece.

Pete, the only solution I see to marking the leather that way is to make sure you have enough chili on your cheek to repeat the pattern....then you can call it CUSTOM leather.

Are you gluing your pieces together before stitching?

I got started making holsters for ME and showing them at the local toy store. Now, I have an arrangement with the owner and sell 99% of all my holsters through his store. Since it's a toy gun store, I have access to pretty much the entire inventory if I need to mold something. Often times, I have to use the actual gun from the customer because they're asking for a custom holster for something that the major retailers (Uncle Mike's, Fobus, Galco, etc.) don't make. For example: A 6" 686 with a full length Aristocrat sight and under lugs.....or a IMI baby Eagle....or one of the wonder nines with a compensator and tactical light (yeah, that one was pretty much a leather box with a belt slot). ETA: I am pretty discriminating on who I'll build holsters for. There is a HUGE liability potential with every holster sold, so I try to only provide holsters for people I'm reasonably sure aren't going to be stupid.....and by 'stupid' I mean trying to practice 'fast draw' from a concealment holster with a live gun.....or the guy who after 2 magazine's worth on the indoor range came out and asked if he could borrow some hearing protection. No leather for that one.

I use the chisel method too, sorta. I sharpened a putty knife, which is already very thin, so I don't have any distortion as the larger wood chisels can do. Just be sure to get a stiff putty knife! You can easily lay a ruler along the line between holes if you want to just use a knife. The trick with a knife is to never cut INTO a hole. Cut most of the way, turn the knife, and finish the cut from the other hole. That way, you eliminate the possibility of going to far and putting a small cut on the side of the hole.

Jack, you do have a point in that, but we'd have to know some particulars such as what type of leather, and particularly what thickness. Then we could make suggestions on which thread to use, and consequently what spacing would look good with it. We'd probably have to point out that on anything thicker than 8oz vegtan, the chisel is going to get stuck in the leather (provided it even makes it through) and require pulling or even beating the leather off the chisel, which would probably distort the leather a bit and leave some pretty large holes on top. After that we'd need to know how the person doing the stitching wants to fill the large holes left over by the chisel. Personally, for large chisel holes, I think something like 415 fills it nicely, but then the stitches look all bunched up. We'd probably also point out that hand stitching with waxed linen looks far better than nylon because once you run over it with the overstitch wheel, the stitches all lay down nice and close to the leather, AND you can taper the end of waxed linen and lay it over another thread. That causes the end of the stitch to be pretty much invisible. We might also point out that saddle stitching (regardless of thread size) is by far more durable since a single broken stitch won't unravel... because there's another thread holding the seam together. But I'm loathe to point any of this out to the OP because I don't want any of my projects to be considered as "crafty", and only done on "natural undyed natural" like those posted by Katsass......oh, wait....his pics show formed, dyed, sealed and finished pieces, some of which have exotic inlays. And we've already been told that hand stitching with an AWL is absolutely the worst way to do these types of projects. It's kind of humorous, when you think about it, how all these experienced leatherworkers keep suggesting the tried and true methods that just keep working, when there's all these new fangled gizmos available to let you turn out stuff much more quickly. Oh yeah, I almost forgot......On stitch lines where the spacing doesn't equal out to an exact spi, it's really easy to 'fudge' the spacing over several holes with an awl so that the difference in stitch length is not noticable. And if you were after small holes, you're not going to get much smaller for stitching than a bridle awl. For most hand stitching, 6-8 spi looks good with 138 - 207 thread. 277 looks better at 5spi. 346 @ 5, maybe even 4 spi, and 416 at 4-5 spi. But all that is of course dependent on how much force the seam will need to withstand, how thick the leather is, and what kind of leather. You could easily do a purse made out of garment leather and use 277 at 5 spi.....but it's overkill and it looks terrible. Something like that looks a lot better with size 92 thread run at 8-10 spi. On the other hand, a pair of saddle jockeys made of vegtan could be sewn at 10 spi with size 69 thread and it'd effectively perforate the seams, resulting in very little strength.

Welcome to Leatherworker.net! Restroom is down the hall to the left, kitchen is on the right. Pull a chair up to the tooling table and stay a while! We'll try to help out with any questions you have, so feel free to ask.

Wow. Great way to respond to someone trying to help you. Also a great way to get other people to chime in and help.... Since we're assuming you know what you're doing, are we also to assume that most commercial applications use sewing machines instead of chisels, and already know why they are stitching at a particular sized thread and spi? Because we're assuming that you know what you're doing, there's really no point in answering the question is there?

I'll have to admit that more than once I've tooled everything I needed, THEN cut the piece out of larger piece of leather.....stretchus non-existus.

OOPS! I guess I overlooked that (or just missed it in my little hiatus). ahem..... Check with the Bearman.

Call Chris for one. His member name is Spinner and you should be able to find his contact information on his profile.

Tucker gun leather was the first to bond the leather (their 'silent thunder', IIRC), so it can be done. If fact, I've been doing it for quite a while now, selling through the local gun store under the name Hydex.....so dibbs on that name.

Since the Mog is out of the question, and you have several viable ideas, can I go ahead and suggest just adding a hover craft conversion to the van? Or perhaps having some of the boys in the RAF come pick you up with a helicopter? For storage on the van, you should have no difficulty building a low plywood floor that allows you to slide the planks under it. That way, even when loaded, you can get the planks out.

Proper casing for tooling should include wetting the leather, then letting it set for a long while for the moisture content to equalize throughout the fibers in the entire piece. Many people bag the item and place it in the fridge overnight. Then, the leather is removed and allowed to dry until it looks dry i.e. it's returned to it's original color, but is still cool to the touch. That is when the leather is cased. As to securing it to a board for tooling....you don't have to use cardboard. If I have a lot of tooling to do.....once it's cased....I stick it to my granite block. Or the next time you get down to Lowe's/Home Depot, get a piece of plexi-glass. It's just a firm surface to which to attach the leather. The reason for this is that tooling distorts the leather....kind of like rolling out dough. If you press one part of it thin, it tends to spread out. What you're trying to prevent is getting the whole piece out of shape/distorted. If it looks to be drying out too quickly, you can place something over the leather (Saran wrap) to delay the drying, and can even give it a light spraying with water ($1 'utility' spray bottle) to keep it moist. DO NOT TOOL ON A RUBBERIZED SURFACE. Your tooling surface needs to absorb the impact of the tool without moving - hence the common practice of using a large piece of granite or marble. It has enough mass to absorb the energy of the tooling without shifting or rebounding. If you tool on a rubberized surface, you'll probably get double strikes from where the tooling surface has 'bounced' the leather back into the tool. You can put a rubber pad under the tooling block, but that's just to help absorb sound transmission from the block to the the table.

If you're after a powered machine, consider the Cobra Class 4 or the Cowboy 4500. Both are 16" arm machines and will sew up to 7/8ths, as well as handling thinner weights. Steve (Cobra) has a couple of videos on his site, and at least one of them shows Heddy Pepper sewing a purse with a Class 4. You could go with the Class3 / 3500, but they are so close in price that it doesn't make sense to get the smaller machine. Now, a one machine approach may be how you want to go, but you'll likely end up with at least two. The reason for this is that unless you have copious amounts of one type of item, you'll find yourself having to swap thread and readjust the tensions all the dang time. Most shops end up with a large capacity machine, and a second machine (perhaps a flat bed) for the smaller items. If you really intend to have a business out of it, you'll probably end up with a clone of a Singer 29 as well - it's a patcher machine, and no shop is truly complete without one. I also have a Boss, but for 99% of my 'small' sewing, I revert to saddle stitching it with two needles. There's also the minor point of needing a muscle rub after making a gun belt for a customer with a 54" waist...at 6 spi (or 324 pulls of the handle) plus locking the stitches.

Unless your motor is classified as "brushless" then it has little rods in it that make the electrical connection. Those are called the "brushes", and over time they wear out. They also leave behind a good bit of carbon(?) dust and that dust could potentially keep the connection closed (providing power). Give the motor a few hard taps with a light mallet and see if black dust is filtering out. Or, it could be a sticky spot on the arm....a bad return spring....etc.

Not to push Tandy as the only one that does it, but there are some free patterns on their page.

If the paint is feeding 'okay' when the bottle is opened then re-sealed, it sounds like the bottle is developing a vacuum. Look at the lid to see if it has an air hole, and if that air hole is clogged. If not, try using it with the lid tightened to "snug", but not cranked down. Most of the time, a siphon feed airbrush is used in the horizontal position, not vertically. If you're using it in a vertical position, your medium may be preventing air from entering the bottle. You might also consider the method of spraying - I have a little cheap HF airbrush compressor that I run at ~35-40 PSI...at PEAK. Continuous pressure is down to around 20PSI. What I do is spray in bursts to allow pressure to build up between them. This gives me the most consistent atomization. Continuous spray gets a few spatters...even with un-thinned dye.

Antiquing is a process that puts additional shading in the beveling and other impressions. There is an antique gel from Tandy (Eco-product), but I have had the best results with traditional Antique Paste (Fiebing's). It gets worked into all the nooks and crannies....tell ya what, that whole 'picture is worth a thousand words' thing comes to mind. I wonder how much typing I can save with this video.... .It's the easy way to get the leather to look like it's been used, because e v e n t u a l l y , dirt/grime would get down in all the nooks and crannies anyway....so you're just adding all the 'color' it'll eventually get....as part of the finishing process, because old leather looks better than new leather (most of the time).

There is nothing wrong with making pink things. If a customer wants one, they're going to get it from somewhere. There is especially nothing wrong with making pink items when She Who Gives Porch-passes says she wants it in pink. Just be sure to wear a suitable disguise and rubber gloves. As to how to get the color....I haven't the foggiest idea. I avoid pink like the plague.

Well, we're talking about two different things- So in fairness, molding is done 'wetter' than tooling....because you want to be able to move the leather around. Tooling is done 'cased' so that you get the burnishing effect in the tool impressions. The detail lines (boning) on ANY type of wet molding is actually done after the molding is complete...which means the moisture has had a little time to evenly distribute through the leather...resulting in slightly damper than 'cased' leather. By the time you get the lines boned in, you are effectively working with cased leather. In simpler terms, if the leather is taking and holding the impressions/lines, then you're doing fine. If it squishes around a bit, (lines are not distinct) it's too wet. If you need a lot of force to get clean lines, it's too dry.

For that last question...For belts, yes, it's worth the extra money to get the better leather. For holsters, at least for the first 50 or so, you won't recognize much profit if you're using the more expensive leather. There is a learning curve while you learn how to work WITH the leather, and small errors can (and often do) result in lots of things in the scrap bin....i.e. If you measure the stitch line totally wrong and can't even get the leather to stretch enough. I'm not saying get the cheapest stuff you can find, though. While you're working through the 'trial and error' stage, order, use, and experiment with 'good' quality leather. Once you've got your patterns worked out, THEN start making product with the HO.